Sorry I didn't make it clear enough; I'm not discrediting RMS for his FSF work. In fact, understanding free software vs. open source is an important distinction. I'm explicitly talking about his aimless political rants that are in fact pretty reactionary. I separate the art from the artist in this case so I am by no means discrediting the FSF and his role within it.
Edit: Let's be Marxists about this. I think we can look at history to acknowledge, respect and improve upon the groundwork of a free software visionary. What we shouldn't do is proceed to uncritically support the visionary outside of what he has done. The FSF has matured and it is no longer just RMS, there is no need to put him on a pedestal and be idealists about it.
Okay, I'll be honest and I went and dug into the controversial stuff he apparently said. Considering he's ND, I find it a bit uncomfortable that the whole world seemed to take a lot of it out of context, since he's retracted his views on children SA and has hurt no one. I don't want to further this act of ableism.
Originally, I wasn't commenting on those scandals. I admit I didn't even know all that much about them. I used to just read his political notes before I was radicalized and now looking back a lot of his notes, there's a lot of liberal takes on China, HK and the likes that I have no interest in reading about anymore, because he doesn't engage with those topics with as much nuance as he does with his main work and other US/EU topics. I'll edit to retract the sentiment in my OP where it indicated that he's "old and irrelevant".
He advocates for social justice alongside very militant software beliefs that honestly should be pinned, and not mixed in between with his liberal world news stuff. However, he can structure his blog anyway he wants to.
The point is, I have no ill beliefs regarding his profession work. I also don't really find it necessary to "dunk" on his takes, most of them are good, perhaps lacking a bit of reading at most (but that's not his field). He seems to have received enough hate from people that just heard and regurgitate the sentiment that "he's weird", which is indeed, like you said, character assassination to a certain extent.
I think most of his shit takes can be attributed to being overly pedantic or ND, it's the misogyny that he's never retracted or atoned for that I can't forgive. free software doesn't need him and the FSF was cowardly bringing him back.
Sorry I didn't make it clear enough; I'm not discrediting RMS for his FSF work. In fact, understanding free software vs. open source is an important distinction. I'm explicitly talking about his aimless political rants that are in fact pretty reactionary. I separate the art from the artist in this case so I am by no means discrediting the FSF and his role within it.
Edit: Let's be Marxists about this. I think we can look at history to acknowledge, respect and improve upon the groundwork of a free software visionary. What we shouldn't do is proceed to uncritically support the visionary outside of what he has done. The FSF has matured and it is no longer just RMS, there is no need to put him on a pedestal and be idealists about it.
deleted by creator
CW: csam, SA.
Okay, I'll be honest and I went and dug into the controversial stuff he apparently said. Considering he's ND, I find it a bit uncomfortable that the whole world seemed to take a lot of it out of context, since he's retracted his views on children SA and has hurt no one. I don't want to further this act of ableism.
Originally, I wasn't commenting on those scandals. I admit I didn't even know all that much about them. I used to just read his political notes before I was radicalized and now looking back a lot of his notes, there's a lot of liberal takes on China, HK and the likes that I have no interest in reading about anymore, because he doesn't engage with those topics with as much nuance as he does with his main work and other US/EU topics. I'll edit to retract the sentiment in my OP where it indicated that he's "old and irrelevant".
He advocates for social justice alongside very militant software beliefs that honestly should be pinned, and not mixed in between with his liberal world news stuff. However, he can structure his blog anyway he wants to.
The point is, I have no ill beliefs regarding his profession work. I also don't really find it necessary to "dunk" on his takes, most of them are good, perhaps lacking a bit of reading at most (but that's not his field). He seems to have received enough hate from people that just heard and regurgitate the sentiment that "he's weird", which is indeed, like you said, character assassination to a certain extent.
I think most of his shit takes can be attributed to being overly pedantic or ND, it's the misogyny that he's never retracted or atoned for that I can't forgive. free software doesn't need him and the FSF was cowardly bringing him back.